“So Pharaoh turned away, assembled his scheme, and then came. Moses said to them, ‘Woe to you! Do not fabricate lies against Allah, lest He destroy you with a punishment. Whoever fabricates lies has certainly failed.’ Then they disputed their matter among themselves and conferred in secret. They said, ‘These two are surely magicians who seek to drive you out of your land by their magic and do away with your exemplary way.’”

“So Pharaoh turned away, assembled his scheme”—that is, his plot, stratagem, and magicians—“and then came” to the appointed meeting. “Moses said to them,” meaning the magicians whom Pharaoh had assembled. They numbered seventy-two magicians, each of them carrying a rope and a staff.

It was also said that they were four hundred. Kab said that they were twelve thousand, and it was also said that they were more numerous than that.

“Woe to you! Do not fabricate lies against Allah, lest He destroy you with a punishment.” Hamzah, al-Kisa’i, and Hafs recited fayushitakum—“lest He destroy you”—with the letter ya’ vowelled with dammah and the letter ha’ with kasrah; the rest recited it with both the ya’ and ha’ vowelled with fathah. Both are dialectal variants. (1) Muqatil and al-Kalbi said: “That is, lest He destroy you.” Qatadah said: “Lest He utterly annihilate you.” “Whoever fabricates lies has certainly failed.”

“Then they disputed their matter among themselves”: that is, the magicians debated and consulted one another privately concerning Moses, away from Pharaoh.

Al-Kalbi said: They said secretly, “If Moses overcomes us, we shall follow him.”

Muhammad ibn Ishaq said: When Moses told them, “Do not fabricate lies against Allah,” some of them said to others, “This is not the speech of a magician.”

“And they conferred in secret”: that is, they held a private discussion; the word may function as either a verbal noun or a noun. Then they said, with some of them secretly speaking to others: “These two are surely magicians,” meaning Moses and Aaron.

Ibn Kathir and Hafs recited in with a light nūn: “These are nothing but two magicians,” as in His saying, “We think you are certainly one of the liars” (al-Shu‘ara 26:186)—that is, “We think you are nothing but one of the liars.” Ibn Kathir pronounced the nūn in “these two” with doubling.

Abu Amr recited inna with a doubled nūn, and “these two” with ya’, in accordance with the standard grammatical form.

The others recited inna with a doubled nūn and “these two” with alif, and they differed concerning it: